Parents Are Concerned That Their Public School Hired a Quiverfull Christian Dad

When classes begin this year at Monument Academy, an elementary and middle charter school in Colorado, one of the teachers will be a former evangelical reality TV star with a “quiverfull” family.

Chris Jeub, his wife, and their 16 kids were featured for a season on the TLC show Kids By the Dozen back in 2007. Much like the more famous Duggars, they hold very conservative views about gender roles, they homeschool their children… and there have been abuse allegations within the family.

One of his older daughters accused her parents in a 2014 blog post of physically and emotionally abusing their children. Jeub denied the allegations, which never were proven.

“The allegations were made four years ago and have proven to be false,” Jeub said Tuesday. “I haven’t made public rebuttals because, frankly, I am more interested in reconciliation with my daughter. This is a personal family matter that has been difficult on all of us.”

They weren’t “proven false.” There were just no charges filed. Still, you can read Cynthia Jeub‘s story here.

That’s not the only reason his appointment disturbs some parents at Monument Academy. According to them, he’s also expressed his beliefs about women and education, and they’re exactly what you’d expect from a conservative Christian father:

[Parent Heather] Yuen said parents are concerned not only by Jeub’s background, but also by what Jeub has written on his blog.

She cited a 2013 blog post titled “Educating Girls,” in which Jeub referred to other articles about how educating girls leads to lower birth rates and how a shrinking population would be devastating.

“This begs the question: What are they teaching the girls?” Jeub asked. He argued that schools don’t educate but “indoctrinate” and “proselytize young minds to become good workers,” not “thinkers, creators, leaders.”

“He seemed to be saying it’s dangerous to educate our young girls. They’ll go into the workforce and not make babies, and our population will go extinct,” Yuen said. “I don’t feel someone like that should be teaching the future generations.”

For what it’s worth, a dive into Jeub’s website (including older archived versions of it) came up empty on that post. At least I can’t find it anywhere. Jeub himself said that article wasn’t deleted because it “never existed.”

He does have a post condemning modern education, mostly echoing what Sir Ken Robinson once said in a TED talk about how modern schools kill creativity. A lot of teachers would agree.

What about his faith, though? Should we be concerned that he wants to proselytize in the classroom?

Yuen and other parents said they also are worried that Jeub might try to impart his fundamental Christian views on students, given that he’s the school’s speech and debate coach and operates a Christian organization that teaches kids speech and debate skills.

They’re worried… but they also aren’t pointing to any evidence that says he’s doing something wrong. The man is entitled to his private beliefs as odious as they might be. That’s no reason to punish him for something he hasn’t done.

The school’s director said staffers (obviously) adhere to church/state separation and he’s never had any complaints about Jeub when he substitute taught in the past.

I’m a little sensitive to the criticism Jeub is getting about his beliefs because I was a public school teacher — and speech coach — with very public views on religion that many parents would reject. In my case, I kept the worlds separate as best I could. My role in school was never to promote atheism to the students. Even if parents were concerned, I gave them nothing to complain about.

Jeub has plenty of baggage, but his beliefs shouldn’t prevent his hiring. As long as he does his job and understands that the classroom is not a brand new pulpit for his religious views, he shouldn’t have any issues.

The good news is that parents are aware of the potential problems and they’ll be keeping a close eye on him. All the more reason for him to stay in line.

(Thanks to Brian for the link)